Main Course
| Main Course | ||||
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| Bee Gees studio album | ||||
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Publication |
June 1975 |
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| Label (s) | RSO records | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, MC |
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pop |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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Studio (s) |
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Main Course is the eleventh international music album by the Bee Gees .
production
After the release of " Mr. Natural " the Bee Gees first moved to Australia and Asia , where the band was still very popular and could perform in sold-out halls. In January and February 1975 - after almost a year of abstinence from the studio - the recordings for "Main Course" began in the Criteria Recording Studios in Miami , again under the direction of Arif Mardin . For keyboardist Geoff Westley was Blue Weaver joined the band as Dennis Bryon once at Amen Corner busy. Strings, wind instruments and percussion were recorded in the Atlantic Recording Studios in New York, arranged by Arif Mardin.
Mardin's handwriting can be heard even more clearly on this album than on the previous album. Typical Gibb compositions such as the piano ballad “Songbird” or the “Country Lanes” interpreted by Robin Gibb can still be found on »Main Course« . What is new for the band, however, is on the one hand the influence of Blue Weaver, who gave the sound of the Bee Gees a new, formative influence with his synthesizer sound and his compositional talent, but also the courage to break new ground by following on from R&B - Beats dared and created songs like “Jive Talkin '”, “Nights on Broadway” or “Wind of Change”, all of which became classics in the band's repertoire . Heard most clearly on "Jive Talkin '", where Barry Gibbs' scratchy rhythm guitar and a bass line played together by Maurice Gibb on bass guitar and Blue Weaver on synthesizer resulted in an unusual funky sound. Many Bee Gees fans reacted with horror when the song was released as a single in May 1975. On the other hand, the band was able to gain completely new fans, as they made it to number 1 in the USA with the title.
On "Nights on Broadway", "Fanny (Be Tender with My Love)" and "Baby as You Turn Away" you can hear Barry Gibbs falsetto singing for the first time , which gave the harmony singing of the three brothers a new quality and later became a trademark of the band should.
For the first time the Bee Gees are working with Karl Richardson , who appears as a sound engineer on this album.
All compositions are from 1975. The album was accompanied by a sheet of text.
Contributors
- Arranger , conductor : Arif Mardin
- Concertmaster : Gene Orloff
- Sound engineer : Karl Richardson (Criteria), Lew Hahn (Atlantic)
- Guitar : Alan Kendall
- Drums : Dennis Bryon
- Keyboards , piano : Blue Weaver
- Saxophone : Joe Farrell
- Percussion : Ray Baretto
- Harmonica : Donny Brooks
Track list
- A1. Nights on Broadway (Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb)
- A2. Jive Talkin '(Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb)
- A3. Wind of Change (Barry & Robin Gibb)
- A4. Songbird (Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb, Blue Weaver)
- A5. Fanny (Be Tender with My Love) (Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb)
- B1. All This Making Love (Barry & Robin Gibb)
- B2. Country Lanes (Barry & Robin Gibb)
- B3. Come on Over (Barry & Robin Gibb)
- B4. Edge of the Universe (Barry & Robin Gibb)
- B5. Baby as You Turn Away (Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb)
expenditure
The album was released in 1975 by RSO , distributed in Germany by Polydor , in the USA by Atlantic Records . The album was first released on compact disc in 1990 . Since 2008 it has only been available digitally in Europe.
- 1973: RSO 2394 150 (LP)
- 1990: Polydor 833 790-2 (CD)
- 2011 USA: Reprise Records R2 529262 (CD)
reception
Main Course sold very well, especially in the USA, supported by a tour with forty stations. In Europe, however, the band's new sound was not so well received. While it did not even appear in the sales charts in England , it reached number 29 in Germany after all. The Bee Gees did not tour Europe.
With "Come on Over" Olivia Newton-John came in 1976 to number 23 in the US charts. In 1977 Candi Staton was much more successful than the Bee Gees themselves with her version "Nights on Broadway" in the British singles chart, where she made it to number 6. In 1980 Jimmy Ruffin recorded "Songbird", produced by Robin Gibb and Blue Weaver . In 1998 rapper DMX used a sample from "Nights on Broadway" on his album "It's Dark And Hell Is Hot".
See also
bibliography
- The Ultimate Bee Gees Biography: Stories of the Gibb Brothers by Melinda Bilyeu, Hector Cook, Andrew Môn Hughes, with Joseph Brennan and Mark Crohan. Starcluster Verlag, Balve, 2007. ISBN 978-3-925005-66-4
- You Should Be Dancing - My Life With The Bee Gees by Dennis Bryon, ECW Press, August 2015, ISBN 978-1-77041-242-2
- The Essential Rock Discography by Martin C. Strong, Canongate Books, 2006. ISBN 978-1-84195-985-6